


Alternia Burning

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck, Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Astra Militarium, Crossover, Gen, Imperial Guard, Science Fiction, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-01-26 20:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1700933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A crossover fic between Homestuck and Warhammer 40 000. When an armed conflict erupts between humanity, trolls and Chaos on the planet of Alternia, Commissar Rose Lalonde and her troops are quick to respond. What seems to just be a standard conflict turns out to be the start of something bigger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this fic idea in my head for over a month and now it has finally been put in writing! Originally, this first chapter was going to be much longer, but I have decided to split it into two instead. (Don't worry, all the content will still be there) Anyways, read on and enjoy!

”Commissar Lalonde?”

”Come in.”

Your name is Rose Lalonde and you’re a Commissar in the Imperial Guard. At the moment, you’re sitting at your desk in your office. It is a small and dark room, lit up only by the dim lights on the wall, and on the rare occasion that the ship is parked at the right angle, a distant star shining in through the window into space behind your back.

Other than that, your office mostly consists of a sturdy wooden desk with two chairs nearby. A comfortable one for you and a less comfortable one for any guests you might have. In case of an important visit from a higher officer, you let them have the comfortable chair instead. If the Emperor got off the Throne and came to visit, you’d bring in a couch for him. The Emperor deserves as much.

The guest chair has some red spots here and there, which are definitely not dried blood and have no correlation whatsoever to the mysterious stain on the red carpet and the many bullet holes in the floor and walls. How did they ever get there?

The door creaks open and a Guardsman enters. It is difficult to make out his features in the darkness, but he’s definitely a man. His hair is tucked in underneath his helmet, although black strands poke out here and there, and if you are not mistaken, he’s wearing glasses.

“Yes?” you ask since he hasn’t spoken a single word yet. While asking, you turn the monitor on your desk off before turning to look at him. You try your best to not appear too intimidating. Most Guardsmen have both fear and respect for Commissars.

“Oh, yes! Message from command, ma’am!” He salutes you as he walks over with a piece of paper. You take it and look back at him. The Guardsman doesn’t seem very nervous, so either he has handled Commissars before or he’s very brave. “Your name?” you ask trying to sound as polite as you can, even though you still manage to put some authority into it. Can’t get too personal with a fellow soldier.

“John Egbert, ma’am!” A relatively average-sounding name for an average-looking Guardsman. To be honest, you rarely remember Guardsmen. They’re usually a beige ocean with helmets and lasguns marching by you unless you’re the one leading the charge towards the enemy. As for you personally, it varies. Sometimes you are on the front line commanding a charge, and other times you are at HQ, coordinating air support, armor and artillery.

At the end of the day, what matters is if you won the battle or not, not where you were. You do your job and the Imperium has another victory noted down in records. Life then goes on until the next battle.

“Thank you, Egbert. You serve the Emperor well. Dismissed! …oh, and close the door on your way out, please?” The sentence starts off cold, although as you make your last request, you warm up a bit. Not too much. Heat is for the denizens of the Warp, and the denizens of the Warp are evil. On top of that it is absolutely forbidden to be friendly with Guardsmen. Friendliness isn’t regulated by any restrictions but rather personal code and morals.

You take a look at the piece of paper in your hand. The Imperial Aquila in form of a two-headed black eagle is printed at the top of the paper and it has been stamped with a red stamp reading “CONFIDENTIAL – FOR AUTHORIZED EYES ONLY” in the lower right corner.

Chances are, a pair of unauthorized eyes would probably have read it already before getting to that corner. Hm, the light in your room is a little too dim and you don’t have a good reading light. Last one broke when you hurled it at a Guardsman who had lost his lasgun. The lasgun was later recovered in the pipe system when a toilet clogged up. To this day, the enigma of how the lasgun wound up in the toilet pipes is unsolved. Theories including heresy, clumsiness, a practical joke gone wrong and many other explanations have been floating around and yet no solution has been found. Asides from the two missing Primarchs, the lasgun in the toilet is the biggest mystery in the Imperium.

Your reading light broke and you then proceeded to yell at the Guardsman for dodging it and not letting his armor or helmet (and in the best case, his face) take the blow. After that, he ran away and you were left with a broken reading light and a missing lasgun.

Of course, the idiots on the ground had to go and get a Baneblade tank broken somehow. (The full story was never divulged, through rumors whisper that the incident began with the words “Hold my drink, I want to try something” and involved a very large rock and Baneblades being poorly constructed for falling) The tech-priests considered the tank to be of greater importance than the broken reading light which probably sits on a shelf in the workshop still.

You would of course go down there yourself if it was not for the fact that you don’t like spending more time than absolutely necessary with the tech-priests. They are slightly intimidating with the tentacle-like mechadendrites attached to their spines and the low electronic humming they make when communicating with each other. However, tech-priests are not as unsettling as the Servitors, the mindless drones of flesh and steel used for the lowest and easiest of tasks.

With no artificial reading light, perhaps a natural light will do fine instead? An idea hatches in your mind as you switch the intercom device on your desk on and adjust it to the bridge frequency.

“Bridge? Commissar Lalonde speaking, over.”

Almost immediately, a raspy voice is heard over the communication system.

“Reading you loud and clear, Lalonde, over.”

“Alter heading minus forty-five degrees, please. Utmost importance to both Imperium and myself. Reading light broken.”

Not a single word is heard in response except some grumbling. By this point, the rest of the ship’s crew has learned that arguing with you isn’t worth it for the most part. A silver tongue and a bolt pistol are excellent tools to have at your disposal.

Ever so slowly, a familiar humming sound is heard as engines fire up and the gargantuan armed cathedral boasting a span of five kilometers across and nearly a hundred thousand passengers springs to life. Twenty-eight million tons of steel turn around, and with them, tens of thousands of soldiers, crewmen and vehicles, all just to give you that much-deserved reading light. If this isn’t absolute power, you don’t know what is. After a few minutes, things calm down and the nearby sun is shining in through your window, giving you a perfect opportunity to read the paper you received earlier whilst you sip the bitter tanna from the mug on your desk.

It seems to be standard fare. An armed conflict between humans and xenos has erupted on a planet. Hang on, does it really say “Trolls”? You have heard of Orks before, but never Trolls. According to the paper, they are a xeno race who has often peacefully co-existed with humans on the planet Alternia. So why would there be a conflict now? _Of course._ Reports state that Chaos forces have been seen as well and that they most likely have been lighting the sparks of conflict. Exterminatus is out of the question because of risked heavy Imperial losses and damaged relations to the Troll Empire.

You switch your intercom system on again. “Bridge, how many troops do we have at our disposal on this ship?”

“About a hundred thousand soldiers, a few hundred Leman Russ tanks and Valkyries and a few Baneblades, Commissar Lalonde.”

This seems to be a suitable force. In addition to that, Alternia must have a few thousand Planetary Defense Force soldiers and reinforcements are just a message away. These people are the Imperium’s finest, the Emperor’s hammer, and shall have no problem quelling the flames of conflict on Alternia. Humanity shall prevail and the foul traitors and xeno scum will regret the day they ever crossed the Emperor.

“Plot a course for Alternia. The Trolls shall have their first serving of the Emperor’s fury and Chaos is long overdue for the leftovers.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The invasion of Alternia begins...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You never thought this would come, would you? This chapter was written sporadically over the course of three months and to be honest, I never knew if it'd ever be finished, but one boring class later... Enjoy!
> 
> (Yes, the scene where Rose confronts the governor is a reference to Final Liberation)

A terrifying roar makes itself heard as the ship (a Lunar-class Imperial Guard Cruiser named _The Blade of Skaia_ ) starts up the Warp Drive. Alternia isn’t very far away. A twelve-hour jump if nothing goes wrong. From your spot on the observation deck, a marvelous and horrifying vision unfolds in front of you. The peace and quiet of realspace is interrupted when a hole into the Immaterium opens.

This has to go quick. Even waiting a second too long can lead to horrible abominations that should never have existed in the first place escaping into realspace. The Warp is a dangerous place where negative emotions gain physical form in the shape of daemons and other horrible beings. Thoughts and nightmares are all the more horrifying than they already were and direct exposure to this realm can drive even the sanest of beings into insanity and deception.

The ship’s Gellar field is up. This force field will protect the ship from the influences of the Warp. If these did not exist, the ship would have a high likelihood of being attacked by Chaos forces. Going into the Warp means, in essence, that you’re offering your ship up to the forces of Chaos who have made their home there.

With no time to waste, the ship flies into the Warp with the tear in reality closing behind it. The fate of the tens of thousands aboard is now in the hands of the navigation crew. If they know their abilities well, the journey will be a safe one. If they do not, every second will be a matter of life and death.

The next twelve hours are not the most pleasant ones you have experienced. You go to the nearest communications unit and tell the troops to prepare for deployment, although in all fairness, you are not too sure how well that will go. Shrieks are heard when the horrible beings descend upon the ship, held back only by the Gellar field. Twenty-eight million tons of steel are thrown about like the massive vessel was nothing but a leaf on the wind, at the mercy of the elements. Every blow suffered risks throwing the ship many miles off course.

From the navigation deck below you, a frustrated screaming is heard from the Navigators, the Imperium-sanctioned psykers who can look directly into the Warp without being driven to insanity. These brave men and women have the ship’s fate at their hands and are the ones responsible for keeping the ship on course. This is done by working out Alternia’s position in relation to the Astronomican, the powerful psychic beacon on Terra, powered by a choir of thousands of psykers and amplified and broadcasted into the Warp by the Emperor. Like the lighthouses of old, this beacon guides vessels to their destination.

The Guardsmen aren’t having a pleasant time either. Despite most of them having learned to handle Warp jumps, some are still getting used to it. The new recruits scream, weep, curl up, vomit and some even soil themselves. These brave soldiers cannot always keep that image up, and you cannot blame them. During your early days as a raw recruit, before you became a Commissar, your first few jumps weren’t easy to handle. The voices screaming in your head, the shrieks of terrible daemons throwing themselves at the ship, the vessel flailing about like a ball being thrown around and the possibility of death at any moment eventually drove you to throwing up and weeping. It got better eventually, and you can make a jump with only mild anxiety and nausea these days.

Many hours later, the ship comes to a rest as you re-emerge into realspace. The currents of the Warp threw you slightly off course, but you are in the right solar system. Estimated time to Alternian orbit is 30 minutes.

“Are you alright, ma’am?”

You turn around to see who asked. Whoever it was, they must have seen you sweating and your skin paling during the worst part of the jumps. After wiping the sweat off your brow and neatly tucking your short blonde hair in under your Commissar hat, you give them a look over. The nausea is still felt and your stomach feels strange, although hopefully you can get through a conversation.

A Guardswoman. Young, but probably with a few years of service given her pilot garb and the insigna on her uniform. Tan with long black hair and spectacles. Before speaking, you pour yourself another cup of tanna and take a sip to ease your stomach. Ahhh, much better. The familiar bitter aftertaste is much better than the dry, sick taste you felt in your mouth earlier.

“O-oh, yes, of course. Thanks for asking.” You even give her a smile to show that you’re all fine. Mostly. The dizziness is still there. “What’s your name?” you continue. “Jade Harley, ma’am! 41th Airborne Skaian Regiment, platoon 3!” She sounds excited and smiles really wide at you. Is she always like this or is she just happy to see you?

“Thank you, Harley. Could you please prepare a Valkyrie for me?” Since she’s already here, you might as well put her to work. She nods and runs off, yelling “Of course!” back at you. While she leaves, you turn over to the communications console again to send a message to the crew.

“Prepare for full deployment at once. We’re making planetfall in 30 minutes.”

With the message delivered to the crew, it is time to leave for the hangar. You step into an elevator and wait for it to take you down. A mechanical hiss sounds throughout the hangar while you exit the elevator with the doors closing behind you. The hangar is big. Really big. It stretches off for hundreds, if not thousands, of meters and all kinds of things can be seen, from small transport vehicles to enormous Baneblade tanks. Most of what you see is Guardsmen rushing into vehicles, some of them saluting you on the way past.

A short distance away from the elevator you took, a Valkyrie stands. Well, the Valkyrie is one of many, though this one is dedicated to you. Four Guardsmen stand outside it to act as your bodyguards alongside Jade, the pilot you met earlier.

“Where to, ma’am?” Jade asks.

“The first thing I need to do is have a talk with the planetary governor. After that, I am taking command at our forward operating base.” You try to not sound too formal and dull since Jade is someone you think seems friendly. Not many people are friendly to Commissars without sucking up to them. And in your role as such, you cannot be friendly to the troops either. You are there to make sure what shall be done gets done, no matter what it takes. The life of a Commissar is not an easy one.

“Affirmative!” Jade salutes you and climbs inside the Valkyrie cockpit. You squeeze into the passenger department with the four Guardsmen assigned to you. Two more sit at the doors to man the heavy bolters, though the doors are closed while you are in space. With the familiar sound of engines starting, the Valkyrie takes off through the hangar doors and flies down towards the planet. Two minutes pass, according to your wrist-mounted chrono-piece. Or “wristwatch” as any normal person would call it. “Wrist-mounted chrono-piece” is just fancy Tech-priest babble. Then, the side-mounted sliding entrance devices- Fine, _doors_ slide open and let you see Alternia up close.

Despite the situation on the surface many kilometers below you (and you’re lucky you’re not one of the poor Guardsmen who have to sit right by the door and man the heavy bolters) the sky is the same blue happy color as always. Despire your fear of falling out, you decide to take a peek out through the door anyways. After putting your hat away, of course. You don’t want to risk it blowing away and having to divert to go get it. You can just hear the “Commissar Lalonde, we cannot fly into a warzone just to retrieve a hat!” then the familiar clicking of your bolt pistol’s safety being switched off followed by the same person saying “Pilot, divert and retrieve Commissar Lalonde’s hat” in your head.

In the sky, nothing’s happening at the moment. Not here, anyways. The human-controlled airspace is still untouched by xenos and Chaos. On the ground, things are a little bit different. The hard wind is blowing through your blonde hair and you’re thankful it’s moderately short so it can be easily kept out of your eyes.

Dozens of Leman Russ tanks roll by on the ground, and you think you can see a Baneblade or two too. Against the might of the Imperium’s tanks, no foe dares stand their ground. When a Baneblade approaches with its three hundred tons of steel, all foes tremble. Quite literally, since the ground shakes with its approach and it’s almost impossible _not_ to tremble then. That also means that friendly troops tremble, though not as much as the enemies. Explosions can be seen in the distance, and screams of dying Guardsmen is a noise you’re all too familiar with now.

“We’re approaching the governor’s palace. Prepare for landing!” Jade’s happy-sounding voice is heard over the vox unit and you simply nod in response, even if she cannot see it. Shortly thereafter, the Valkyrie comes to a stop on a landing pad outside and you disembark, finally standing on Alternia. A quick look around from the landing pad reveals that you’re quite high up in the air and that the governor’s palace is at the very top of the hive city. There’s a fall of a few kilometers if you’re to trip over the edge and it does not look like it’ll be a soft landing at all.

The hive city stretches from the ground up to the skies and you are almost at the very top of it. In the spires towering many kilometers above the ground, almost like needles trying to pierce the sky, the richest families of the hive city live. However, life up here is just as dangerous as in the underhive where gangs dwell and wage war on each other. At the top of the city, nobody is safe. Even if they’re at the top of the power structure, the families of the upper hive still desire more and assassination attempts are not uncommon. Lavish decorations are not the only clue that this is the seat of the planetary elite. Living conditions are different depending on where you live in the hive.

At the top of the hive, the elite live. Compared to other parts of the hive, they have a massive advantage. Their occupations are usually of the administrative variety and there is free access to resources such as air and water. Lower down in the hive, most people slave away in large factories, producing goods for the Imperium. Poverty isn’t uncommon and such basic necessities as air and water are provided in the form of recycled such from the upper levels. At the lowest points, it is every citizen for themselves. Criminal gangs run the street, the living conditions take decades away from your lifespan and to live there is the closest thing you will get to living in hell on a hive world.

At the top where you’re currently standing, no problems seem to be visible and the city stretches out far away, seeming like a happy place to live. However, beneath the surface, trouble lurks. As you walk into the palace, you come into contact with large halls, marble statues and paintings covering all the walls.  The Governor must really want to show his wealth off to visitors. Or remind himself of it.

A young woman with dark hair and a red dress, holding a dataslate comes to greet you, apparently listening to orders through an earpiece. “Commissar Lalonde? The governor is ready to see you.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I’d much appreciate it.” The woman, apparently the governor’s secretary, leads you up and down through hallways, each one of them as gigantic and lavish as the previous ones. The taxes here must be insane, or something shady is going on. Maybe both. Nowhere earlier have you seen something as impressive and luxurious as this. Considering you have spent most of your life in military bases, ships and barracks, that is not very surprising. Something tells you that despite the luxuries, you would most likely prefer your current life, making sure that the Emperor’s justice is dealt through lasguns and tanks to those who dare defy the Imperium.

The governor is waiting on his balcony, presumably surveying his planet from it. He is not what you had expected. Judging by his appearance, he is an older man, presumably over sixty years of age, given the wrinkles, grey hair and beard. The white military uniform he wears seems to hint at many years of experience considering how many medals he has. There is of course the possibility that they are fakes and just there to look good. Your own awards are often kept in your office drawer, unless you feel the need to prove yourself to a fellow soldier.

He speaks up in a friendly, yet authorative voice. “Ah, you have come. Thank you for your troops.”

“You are welcome, Governor… Sassacre?” That name is not easy to pronounce and you hope you got it right. Might make it easier to make him comply. You don’t let him speak up just yet, there are still things he needs to hear. “How is the conflict looking?”

“The planet’s militia is currently mobilizing…” _Why hasn’t that already been done?  The conflict has been for at least a couple days. Incompetence. What else would you expect from those not in the Guard?_

“And why wasn’t that done when conflict erupted?”

“There has been issues in getting them together… I’ll give you your orders in the morning, Lalonde.”

Incompetence was too weak of a word. _Idiocy_. You are the one giving orders around here, not him. Under his command, nothing will get done if it keeps progressing the way it has. And last but not least, he has offended you personally by not using your title. Your hand leaves its position behind your back and impacts with his face in what you consider to be the most well-deserved slap you’ve ever given someone. Sometimes, violence is the only way for people to learn.

“ _Commissar_ Lalonde.” You reach into the pockets of your coat and pull your trusty pistol out, aiming it at the surprised governor’s face. It is just an intimidation tactic. The pistol is not loaded and you wouldn’t consider shooting him. Waste of perfectly good ammunition. “Now, choose your next words with _exceptional_ care. I will take over the military command here, and I will do it _now_ , not in the morning. Does that sound good to you?”

“Yes, Commissar.” He is nervous, though does a decent job of hiding it from you. You cannot blame him, you’d have done the same. You put the gun back down and give him a small smile. “Thank you, Governor. Keep your people in check and I will handle the military matters.”

A few minutes later, the Valkyrie departs from the hive city to carry you to the military base a short distance outside it. A suitable force. You have an elevated position on top of the bastion acting as headquarters, which allows you to see large parts of the deployed force.

Thousands of Guardsmen with all manners of weaponry, hundreds of vehicles (mainly Leman Russ battletanks and the occasional Baneblade, not to mention transport vehicles and artillery), some Valkyries outfitted for both transport and warfare, Ogryns, tech-priests and a few Titans rising high above the other forces. Nothing bigger than a Warhound-class for now. No foe, heretic or xeno species can stand against you like this. Steel and weaponry takes you a long way, but what really wins wars is faith in the Emperor.

Time to give them the situation. Having switched the vox-caster on, you begin to speak loudly. It is best if everyone hears. “Listen up, troops! We are here for the sake of humanity. The Troll Empire have proven themselves to be untrustworthy xeno scum, as one should have expected. They have opposed the Emperor and his word, and now they shall pay their price. We shall be his hammer of justice and deliver it to everyone who dares stand against him. The blood of dead Trolls shall flow underneath our feet and cleanse this planet of the filth that inhabits it. Their mutilated bodies shall form our barricades. Let this be a reminder to all that humanity is not trifled with.

And yet the Trolls are not the only ones foolish enough to go against the Imperium. The foul taint of Chaos is spreading for each second and like each and every time earlier, we shall prove to them that no matter the strength of their gods, they cannot stand against humanity. No foe shall live to see our mercy. Right now, we are planning a strategy to strike hard against all threats and wipe them off the surface of the planet. Today, we go to war! FOR THE EMPEROR!”

A united cry of “FOR THE EMPEROR!” is heard in response. Perfect, the troops are on your side. In a few hours, it is time to begin the strike. The strike that will purify this world and let humanity stand prevalent. The tide of war is turning…

 


End file.
